A DC-3 with Wright Cyclone engines, built in 1938 for Australian National Airways
The List of original Douglas DC-3 operators lists only the original customers who purchased new aircraft.
With the availability of large numbers of surplus military C-47 Skytrains or Dakotas after the Second World War, nearly every airline and military force in the 1940s and 1950s operated the aircraft at some point. More than eighty years after the type's first flight, in the second decade of the 21st century the Douglas DC-3 is still in commercial operation.
The first DC-3 series aircraft built was this Douglas Sleeper Transport (DST). Seven DSTs were manufactured for American Airlines before the first DC-3 rolled off the production line.This DC-3 was delivered to Eastern Air Lines on 7 December 1937 and on its retirement from Eastern service in December 1952 was donated to the National Air and Space Museum.ATranscontinental & Western Air DC-3 in 1941
The RSwAF operated two second-hand
ex-AB Aerotransport DC-3 aircraft for
SIGINT purposes. One was shot down on June 13 1952 on a secret mission outside the Baltic coast by Soviet fighters.
All eight in the crew perished.
In 2003, the wreck was located and salvaged. It now resides in the Air Force Museum.
Peter Barry, ed. (1971). The Douglas Commercial Story. Air-Britain Historians.
Best, Martin S. (Spring 2008). "The Development of Commercial Aviation in China: Part 5A: Japanese Airlines in Occupied China and Manchuria". Air-Britain Archive. pp. 17–31. ISSN0262-4923.
O'Leary, Michael (1992). DC-3 and C-47 Gooney Birds. Osceola, Wisconsin: Motorbooks International. ISBN0-87938-543-X.
Pearcy, Arthur (1987). Douglas DC-3 Survivors. Bourne End, Buckinghamshire: Aston Publications. ISBN0-946627-13-4.
